Sub-system
Gene editing makes a targeted change to a genome. The targeting problem was solved with remarkable speed; getting the machinery into the right cells in a living person, and being sure nothing else was changed, is what still limits it.
In one sentence
Gene editing uses programmable nucleases to make targeted changes to a genome — cutting at a specified sequence, or chemically converting or rewriting bases without cutting both strands.
The original approach uses a guide RNA to direct a nuclease to a matching sequence, where it cuts both strands. The cell repairs the break, usually imprecisely, which disrupts the gene — sufficient when the goal is to switch something off. Making a precise change requires the cell's less common repair pathway and is far less efficient.
Newer editors avoid the double-strand break. Base editors chemically convert one base to another directly. Prime editors write a short new sequence from an RNA template. Both are more precise and less prone to the rearrangements a double-strand break can cause, and both are larger and harder to deliver.
Editing works well on cells removed from the body, engineered and returned. Editing inside a patient requires delivering the machinery to the right tissue — which is why the first in vivo successes targeted the liver, where lipid nanoparticles naturally accumulate. Other tissues remain a delivery problem rather than an editing one.
A guide can bind sequences similar to its target, and a double-strand break can cause deletions or rearrangements beyond the intended edit. Assessing this requires unbiased genome-wide methods rather than checking predicted sites, and it is a central part of the safety case for any editing therapy.
The same tools are used in agriculture and industrial biology, where regulatory treatment differs sharply by jurisdiction — some regulate the product, some the technique. That divergence has more effect on where edited crops can be sold than any technical limitation.
2 of these are marked as a chokepoint: a handful of qualified suppliers, a multi-year lead time, or a single geography.
Lipid nanoparticles and viral vectors determine which tissues can be reached; the editor is the easier half.
Lipid nanoparticlesGenome-wide unbiased detection of unintended edits is required evidence, not a research nicety.
DNA sequencingFoundational patents are contested and licensed, and access terms affect who can commercialise what.
Every experiment and every dose consumes chemically synthesised guide RNA and manufactured nuclease, at grades that differ entirely between research and clinical use.
Nucleic acid reagentsWhere a lipid particle cannot reach the tissue the editor travels in a vector, which imports the whole vector manufacturing constraint.
Viral vector manufacturingOther pages in this map that name Gene editing as something they cannot do without.
What each company supplies at this step, and — where a public figure exists — its share of this specific market — with what that share measures, the period it covers and who published it. Some rows also show the company’s own reported revenue for the segment covering this step, which is a different thing: it says how much this business matters to that company, not how much of the market it holds. Not a ranking and not a recommendation.
Develops gene-edited therapies including an approved cell therapy.
Develops in vivo gene editing therapies delivered systemically.
Develops base editing therapies.
Supplies reagents and proteins used in editing and cell engineering workflows.
Develops the search-and-replace editing approach that writes a sequence in without a double-strand break.
Holds foundational editing patents and runs its own in vivo programmes on them.
Supplies the synthesised guides and oligonucleotides most editing experiments are actually run with.
Supplies the enzymes, delivery reagents and sequencing used to check that the edit landed where it was meant to.
Whether delivery beyond the liver is solved for in vivo editing.
Whether base and prime editing displace nuclease editing in clinical programmes.
Whether long-term safety data in treated patients supports broader indications.
Each page explains one technology in plain language, states what it depends on, and names companies by what they supply at that step. Company roles are described qualitatively and deliberately carry no market shares, revenue figures or rankings — those change faster than an explainer can, and a stale number is worse than none. Ticker links point at company pages on this site and are provided for reference only.
Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast. A company named on a page about a technology is not thereby a good investment, and the chokepoints described are structural facts about supply chains rather than predictions about prices. Technology moves; where a page describes something as unresolved or in development, that was true when it was written.
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